My eventual unveiling.

The table around which we gather groans with bowls, plates and bottles. The conversation pauses and my gaze drifts across the wooden surface in front of me. I count three different brands of vodka, three bottles of wine, various mixers. Stood beside me, her arm linked loosely through mine, she sees me looking and allows her eyes to follow my gaze - and yet again her curiosity is piqued. She never knew me as a drinker - only as a man who used to partake, a man who has his fair share of stories from a time long before she knew him; from a time when she would have had no desire to know him. Sometimes she asks me about that time, a combination of morbid fascination and genuine curiosity; a desire to understand the man with whom she shares her days now. This is one of those times, another chance to get answers to those questions and allow her curiosity a free reign. She notices my glance across the table, casually asks which bottle I would have poured from back in those days.

It is not a question that lends itself to a simple answer. I can only explain which bottle I would have started with, explain the rationale behind my beginning - because every bottle on that table would have been sampled relentlessly until exhausted, emptied. Both my height and weight are average and you would not guess to look at me but my capacity back in those days of drinking was enormous, my thirst relentless. My potential to embrace excess was far in excess of my physical stature and at that time, it felt like the only thing I excelled at; all I felt proficient in and all I felt good at doing, better than anybody else I knew. It was never a question of if I started and always a question of where I started; never a question of the order of consumption - only a matter of how quickly I would reach the end of the line, then be able to secure another line to ensure a seamless transition, no pause in the process. Because ultimately that was all that mattered - not the order; only the sensation, the feeling, the destination. It was all about attaining that end result, that sensation - and it resulted in many years where life was not so much lived as it was observed through a veil; a dulling and diminishing soft focus. This was a time where inspiration seemed beyond me, replaced instead by a resigned acceptance; that I would enjoy my days but never fulfill them. Sometimes there was a little whisper within me; a rarely acknowledged fear that my time would most likely be curtailed by this self-destructive, non-sustainable appetite I had acquired. I accepted that inevitability, that possibility that I would run out of time; that my fate would be decided by indecision or procrastination as opposed to resolve or action - and if there were times when that little whisper became too loud for comfort, all I had to do was raise the glass to my lips and eventually that breathed warning would fade again. Enough glasses and everything would fade again.

It was the pain that brought clarity; brought that which was fading away back into focus. It started in my abdomen, stabbing into areas which even my rudimentary grasp of biology knew were important; areas which housed organs classed as vital. The fact that the pain was not constant would have offered reassurance to some. Not to me though, not back in those days. Back then I would rather have accepted constant, grown to live with the familiarity and told myself that it was just part of the price associated with the lifestyle I lead. Instead I was forced to accept these unexpected and unannounced reminders, sharp jolts shooting through my body again, just when I had finally managed to forget that something new, something ominous was happening inside this body of mine. Yet again I employed my trusted coping mechanism and raised a glass, then another, then one more for the road. To absent friends, to anything I could find. It worked, dulled the pain - but that brought new questions to the surface and I found these voices more persistent, more loud than my previous whispering worries. Somehow this felt different to me, more significant. It felt like a final reminder, one last opportunity to get out intact. If I chose to continue dulling, chose to continue living my life through the veil then would that be it? Would that be my final answer? Was this a pain I really wanted to endure; a pain I could afford to endure, to accept?

I procrastinated some more - teetering on the edge of this enormous drop as I looked down; wondering whether it was better to fall and find out how painful my landing would be, or whether it was better to stay here, swaying back and forth and scared. Finally I could stand the uncertainty no longer and I chose to act; chose to set a date to stop; a date to close my eyes, extend my arms outwards and allow myself to fall forwards, to see how long my fall lasted and how hard my impact would be when I finally hit the ground.

New Year's Eve was the chosen date. The end of a year, a period of 365 consecutive days and a date which was no stranger to promises, resolutions. This was the first resolution I had ever made and the plan was simple - this would be the last time I drank. There would be no stopping on the stroke of midnight, draining my glass for a final time as the pub exploded in cheers; as Auld Lang Syne rang out in every household across the land - instead I would continue to drink until my New Year's Eve was concluded - until I fell; until I was exhausted, until I slept. I would have one final night on my terms; do whatever I wanted and drink whatever I felt like drinking, in whatever quantities I felt like indulging in. On paper it was simplicity itself - and in practice it was terrifying; finally forcing myself to answer a question I had successfully put off asking aloud for years. I followed my plan to the letter - I drank my fill, saw the new year through the door, then drank some more. My final private party wound its way into the early hours of the new year's first day and eventually there was nothing left to drink and nowhere left to hide any longer. Eventually I made it home, made it to bed and drifted off to sleep.

And I got lucky - I can sum it up no better than that. If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that I am a creature of addiction. I am not someone who likes - I am somebody who loves, a person for whom total and utter saturation is both the only realistic choice and no choice whatsoever. I am adept at excess – undeniable, absolute excess - and I have enough experience of my addictions, my idiosyncrasies and my personality to know one thing for sure; I really did get lucky. Somehow I conspired to stop at the right time, maybe the only right time there would ever have been - because somehow it has now been over ten years since that New Year's Day dawned; over ten years since a drop last passed my lips and over ten years since I have been seriously tempted. Yet I know that stopping should have been harder, maybe even impossible at the first attempt - yet despite this, it was successful and part of me will always be grateful for the ease with which it happened, all the time never really understanding and really wishing that I could understand, that I knew why.

I have long since accepted that I may never have those answers I crave; that I may only find out how hard it could have been if I fall off the wagon and am left with no choice but to begin all over again. With that in mind, I can accept not knowing how it might have gone on any other day - because knowing how it turned out; living this life and seeing every aspect of every new day through eyes which are no longer veiled makes it all worthwhile. So my name is Matthew - and I may never truly know or understand, but that's okay. Because the one thing I know for sure is this: there was a time when I was content to merely exist another day. Now I can say with certainty, with force – I am alive.